


Peace to Go

by ValmureEld



Series: I Tried Not to Get Into the Witcher and Look Where That Got Me [22]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fear, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Peace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValmureEld/pseuds/ValmureEld
Summary: Geralt doesn't try to save himself this time because he knows deep down...it's over. He just doesn't want to die alone.Regis can't stomach doing nothing.





	1. Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

> I had two horrific ideas crash into each other and this angst fest fell out of it. Don't worry, there's a part two.

It’s a foggy, warm night when Geralt collapses on Regis’ doorstep.

Regis hears it all the way down in his lab, the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground jolting him out a careful drawing and causing him to look up, his brow furrowed. Slowly, he removes his glasses and wrinkles his nose, scooting his chair back and letting the quill fall from his fingers. It’s gone silent again upstairs, and he almost doesn’t go to investigate except for the fact that many nearby now know him as a healer, and the sound of a body dropping may not be a coincidence.

He melts into smoke, the candles flickering and catching on the oily mist as he sweeps upstairs. 

He solidifies just before the door and opens it carefully, peering outside. 

A white head and mess of armor greets him just before the doorstep and his eyes go wide for only a moment before he’s moving into action. He kneels next to Geralt and immediately starts looking for damage, talking all the while.

“Geralt, what’s happened, can you hear me?”

He turns his friend over, wincing in symapthy as Geralt groans, his hand coming up to curl in Regis’ tunic.

“Regis--” Geralt manages, his name a weary breath that pulls at Geralt’s chest. “I’m….” he swallows thickly, his eyes reflecting the moonlight as they peer to the vampire’s face. He stops, as though studying, and then lets his head sag into Regis’ shoulder. “I’m glad I made it to you,” he mutters softly. He coughs then, hand clenching on Regis’ clothing and his face tensing up like the action hurts. 

Blood dribbles out of his mouth and Regis twitches to move him.

“We must get you inside Geralt, you’re bleeding internally I--”

“No,” he whispers, tugging on Regis’ tunic in a weak way that somehow stops the vampire in his tracks. “No,” he repeats, and his eyes meet Regis’ again with a kind of pleading. “I just...want…” he swallows, and Regis can hear the sentence trail off not because Geralt is out of breath, but because he his out of words.

“Geralt, you must let me help you. This is serious--” he rests a concerned hand on Geralt’s breastplate, claws clicking almost tenderly against the medallion resting there. His other arm is looped around Geralt’s shoulders, easily cradling him in his lap.

“It’s okay, Regis,” Geralt says softly, patting his friend’s chest in a way that makes Regis want to panic. “It’s….” he coughs again, grinding his teeth and screwing his eyes shut as he drags in another breath full of needles. “It’s okay. Didn’t--didn’t want to be alone. Wanted to get to Yennefer but…”

His shoulders tense in an aborted shrug and Regis searches Geralt’s face, a cold feeling seeping through him like the frost of the Hunt. 

“Geralt, what are you saying?”

“Ditch seemed cliche,” he mutters, eyes cast to the side so he’s mumbling into Regis’ chest. “Witchers always…..die in some cave or…….” he can’t finish, a new coughing fit seizing his body for an entire, cruel minute that leaves him trembling and even paler than normal. Sweat glistens on his skin and when he drops his head back in exhaustion the pulse in his throat is too fast.

Regis daren’t listen to it properly. 

“Geralt you will not die, do you hear me?” he says firmly, angry at the fearful denial in his own voice. Because this time, he isn’t sure. He really isn’t. 

Geralt gives a small, sad smile with a little huff. “It’s okay. Just….didn’t want to go…..alone. Wish Yen…..could be here but maybe…it’s better she isn’t.”

He looks profoundly sad with that admission, and Regis feels something tear inside. 

“Geralt….” Regis is pleading now, wanting to carry Geralt inside and at least try but loathe to risk Geralt fighting him and hurting himself worse. 

Loathe to steal the peace he can see in his friend’s eyes in case this really is the end of his life.

“She had to watch me die once, Regis,” he manages, his body entirely resting against Regis’ embrace. He feels too light and far too heavy all at once. “I can’t make her do it again. Sorry….sorry to put that on you instead…..”

“I--I’m not giving up, Geralt,” Regis says, his brow tensing as he fights tears. It’s hard to speak past the lump in his throat. “I refuse to let this be your end you could have so many years left--please. Please Geralt--” 

His claws click softly against Geralt’s breastplate as they settle unconsciously over his heart. Geralt huffs something that almost seems like a weary amusement and rests his hand over Regis’. 

“I know what death feels like, Regis. She’s been my companion all my life. I’m not afraid.” 

Regis’ hand turns beneath Geralt’s so he can grasp it, his expression crumbling as he loses his composure. “I am, Geralt,” he says at last, hugging the witcher to him a little tighter. “I am afraid. Please, it’s not your time to go. What of your Cirilla, your Yennefer? You cannot leave them.”

“Ciri’s learned everything she needs to from me,” Geralt says, his breathing growing softer as he drifts. “And Yen…..” he seems sadder at that, but he sighs, a final sound that chills Regis to his spine. “Do something for me, Regis? She always loved my heart. When it stops, if she wants it, take it out and preserve it for her. It was the first thing she noticed and the first thing I gave her. It shouldn’t be burned.” 

Regis can hardly believe what he’s just heard, but Geralt has fallen silent, his eyes closed and his head laying trustingly against his friend’s shoulder. 

“Geralt?” he says, his voice a tremoring hesitation. When he receives no response he shakes Geralt a little, wishing desperately for a response. “Geralt!”

The Witcher doesn’t answer him.


	2. Promises

The Witcher doesn’t die, either.

Paralyzed for only a moment longer, Regis makes up his mind and quickly moves Geralt inside, determined to do anything he must to ensure Geralt survives. He’s barely past a hundred and has had the past two years of Toussaint to strengthen and heal him from a lifetime of malnutrition and neglect on the road.

Regis thinks that that, in the end, is what saves his life. Witchers are remarkably resilient creatures just to start but hardly reach their full potential due to the range and duration of abuses they suffer. Too little clean water, fresh meat, proper vitamins and even a witcher’s body takes lasting damage.

Geralt’s body has greedily soaked up the rest and nutrients his retirement offers, and so in many ways he is healthier at 103 than he’d been in his thirties. Regis has been studying him with regular examinations and has marveled at how his reflexes, comprehension, retention, even his weight, temperature, and vitals have all optimized with the gentle treatment.

With a life like this, Geralt’s body has more than four hundred good years left in it. Regis refuses to let that go to waste.

He only barely succeeds. He works all night, repairing damage, coaxing medications and chemicals in to plead with Geralt to fight just a little longer.

Twice, Geralt stopped breathing, and Regis breathed for him.

Once, Geralt’s heart stopped too, and Regis had frozen in its silence, staring at his friend’s peaceful face and wondering for only a moment if he should let him go.

If he was being selfish.

It lasted only a moment.

It’s a foggy, cool morning when Regis brings Geralt home. Yennefer is waiting, a drawn, anxious look on her face.

“He tried to get to you,” Regis says, feeling the haggardness in his own appearance as Yennefer’s violet eyes dart over her lover. Geralt is cradled in Regis’ arms, head resting where it had first fallen against his shoulder. “He--he didn’t want to die alone.”

Yennefer looks stricken, and she reaches out a hand to cradle Geralt’s head, her other resting on his throat like she desperately needs the assurance.

Regis doesn’t blame her.

Her face twists with something between anger and grief and she bends over the Witcher, kissing his forehead and taking a shuddering breath. Her hair obscures his face and Regis feels his chest ache.

“Bring him inside,” Yennefer says at last, pulling her fingers away from Geralt’s face with a reluctance Regis can taste. He follows her solemnly into the bedroom, laying Geralt on the bed with a silent reverence.

“What happened to him?” she asks, her expression hard as she settles on the bed next to him, examining him for herself.

Regis shakes his head. “I don’t know. I only know he collapsed on my step last night, speaking in circles about not wanting to die alone, how he was sorry he couldn’t get to you--” he presses his lips together, hesitant to give her all the details but she’s paused and her violet eyes look up, her expression sharp. She’s heard what he hasn’t said.

“What else did he say, Regis.”

“He--he said he wished he could have gotten to you but that perhaps it was better you didn’t see him like that….again.”

Yennefer squeezes her eyes shut and she clenches her jaw, bowing her head for a moment. Her hand is still resting on Geralt’s breast.

Regis isn’t sure he should continue, but part of him feels obligated to--like Geralt’s lover should know what his last words almost were.

“He asked me to--remove his heart once he was gone,” he says softly, and Yennefer’s head jerks back up, her eyes wide. Regis offers her a pained, sympathetic look and he swallows. “He wanted you to have it, if you had interest.”

The noise Yennefer makes is pained and involuntary, and Regis bows his head for a moment, trying to give her privacy.

“Regis,” she finally says, and her voice is trembling. Not with grief--with anger. Regis looks up, meeting her eyes, giving her his full attention. “The only place I _ever_ want his heart is _safe_ inside him. Beating.”

He can hear the command in her voice as clearly as he sees the protective hand she’s placed over Geralt’s heart. He only nods once.

“The day it stops, I will have no need of it.”

Regis can hear the promise in those words, and he knows right then that unless Ciri is still there for Yennefer to care for, Yennefer will join Geralt on his pyre.

He intends to ensure that day is many centuries away.

“I will guard him,” Regis promises. “Until my last.”

**Author's Note:**

> The ideas were these: 
> 
> 1\. Some animals die in their owners arms because they know they are going and choose to go to sleep in the embrace of someone they love. 
> 
> 2\. How would Regis and Yennefer react if Geralt said something as wrenching as "Cut my heart out and keep it" because he was so convinced he was dying he didn't try to fight.


End file.
